


Use

by MissJeeves



Series: Ownership/Use [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alternate Moral Code, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Discipline, Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Exhibitionism, F/M, Gen, Group Sex, M/M, Multi, Sexual Politics, Sexual Slavery, Spanking, Voyeurism, sex slavery is bad and everyone knows it...they just won't stop because it's also hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:05:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissJeeves/pseuds/MissJeeves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronon learns a lot, hot and not, about the sexual slavery practices of the SGC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Use

Sheppard drew up papers to make Ronon’s co-ownership of Daniel legal. Ronon didn’t quite get why they had to make it official, but he went along with it. It was actually Daniel who brought it up, a couple times, until Sheppard got around to it.

“It’s just safer to have everything in order,” Daniel said, which wasn’t much of an answer.

Ronon and Sheppard didn’t really follow the contract all that closely. It said Daniel would spend time with them both equally, and he really didn’t. He continued to live with Sheppard and only visited Ronon on occasion.

If Sheppard were gone, on a mission without Ronon (never happened) or on Earth (rare), or laid up in the infirmary (likely), then Daniel spent the night with Ronon until Sheppard came back. Sometimes, Sheppard would randomly send Daniel to Ronon, though. Probably when the man was talking too much, because Ronon did the exact same thing.

Ronon liked to have Daniel wake him with a languid blowjob. That was pretty amazing. Other than that, Ronon preferred visiting him at Sheppard’s. Daniel was good at servicing them both together and although Ronon never touched Sheppard, it could be strange to do Daniel without him around.

But it was important to have witnesses – Sheppard and others had impressed that on him. Teyla and Lorne would come over for that express purpose, usually bring their slaves Rodney and Dr. Keller. They’d all watch each other, and it worked out

Sheppard preferred not to be serviced in public, for some reason. Ronon kind of understood, although he liked to have Daniel blow him under the table after dinner, and sometimes took him in the shower after sparring.

There were scheduled slave performances every week on a make shift stage in the cafeteria. Neither Ronon nor Sheppard had ever entered Daniel. Sometimes there were punishments, corporal discipline and/or exceptionally long and unusual sexual acts the slave wasn’t accustomed to doing. These often required the slave to service more than just the owner, with others invited to participate. Ronon had done that before Daniel, but now that he had his own he didn’t need to borrow.

Sheppard said the stage helped slaves settle in, and since Daniel had already been doing it for longer than required, he didn’t need it.

Ronon wasn’t sure what that meant.

Ronon wasn’t entirely clear on how it all worked. He and Sheppard owned Daniel and hadn’t allowed anyone else to have him. Not even Teyla, mostly to annoy her and because it didn’t make any sense to let her have him when she disapproved of slavery.

Sheppard’s people had strict rules about who a slave could service. Civilians who didn’t own slaves couldn’t touch Daniel. Everyone else needed permission, almost always an actual legal contract, to do so. This included other slaves, which only happened with permission from the other owner.

It was an awful lot of paperwork, though Ronon understood that groups of friends didn’t always get out the proper forms. Before Daniel had asked, Ronon hadn’t done any.

But now, Ronon had Daniel about as much as Sheppard did, and it was nice that with the new contract he never had to ask Sheppard before having Daniel service him.

~

Sheppard tripped over a loose rock on their next mission, went flailing forward, and knocked himself unconscious on the side of a boulder. He had to spend the night in the infirmary and Ronon took Daniel to his quarters.

No witnesses that night, just Daniel riding Ronon, rocking gently while Ronon held his hips.  
  
Ronon wondered if Daniel missed Sheppard’s touch, or if he liked them both at the same time. Or if he preferred one of them over the other. Or if, like Teyla said, he didn’t like either of them and only did what they wanted because he had to.

Afterwards, Daniel padded to the bathroom and got washcloths to clean them both up. Ronon tried to stay awake while Daniel carefully wiped him down and laid a towel over the wet spot.

When Daniel was back in bed, curling in on himself, Ronon forced himself to speak.

“Hey,” he said.

Daniel opened his eyes, blinking to clear them. “Hmm?”

“That was really good,” Ronon said.

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. “For me, too.”

“You liked it?” Ronon checked.

“Yeah.” Daniel lolled his head towards Ronon, looking quizzical.

  
Ronon shook his head, let himself drift off.

 ~

 

Sheppard got put on restricted duty. His head was okay, but Dr. Keller wouldn’t let him go off-world. As a result, Sheppard was super pissy. He also decided Daniel was spying on him for Keller and exiled him to Ronon’s quarters. So, Keller confined him to the infirmary because he didn’t have anyone to watch him.

“Sheppard didn’t think that cunning plan through,” Daniel told Ronon, at dinner that night with Teyla and Rodney.

“You used the words ‘think’ and ‘plan,’ so, no,” Rodney replied.

Keller was on stage that night, with Lorne and a couple Marines. Lorne had invited Ronon to join them, but he’d declined. He did kind of miss being with a woman, though. But he wasn’t sure Keller could service four men at once, anyway. She was doing her best with three up there, already.

Rodney and Teyla were watching the performance, while pretending they weren’t. Daniel seemed to be genuinely ignoring it.

Ronon tapped him on the elbow. “You wanna go up there?” he asked.

For a second, Daniel blinked at him. “Um, no,” he said, firmly. “Why?” He glanced up at the stage where Keller bounced up and down. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Ronon said. He felt confused. “I thought watching was good.”

“There’s a difference between being watched and being a sideshow,” Rodney interrupted. “Being up there is a punishment, Ronon.”

“Sheppard said it –”

“He’s wrong,” Rodney said. “As usual. Here’s a hint: don’t listen to the owner about what a slave likes.”

Ronon looked at Daniel for confirmation.

Daniel grimaced and shot an irritated glance at Rodney. “I don’t enjoy performing on stage,” he said, diplomatically. “That doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way.” Rodney snorted. “Many owners do use it as punishment, for a reason, though.”

“Keller has been up there since she got here,” Ronon said, because it was true. Not every week, but a lot.

“Yeah, Lorne probably needs to sell her to someone else,” Daniel said, honestly. “They don’t get along and he can’t handle her. So they’re up there all the time.”

“She doesn’t want to be up there,” Ronon translated. He’d been up there with her.

“No,” Teyla said, and smirked at him. She knew what he was thinking.

“Probably not,” Daniel allowed. “But, she also hasn’t changed her behavior in a way to make it stop, so…”

“Perhaps she does not wish to be a slave,” Teyla said.

Daniel shrugged. “Then she probably should have enlisted before the military bought her.”

~

It was hard to want Atlantis’ slaves to go away. For as much as Teyla preached it, she continued to own Rodney and continued to use him in the same way Ronon and Sheppard used Daniel.

Ronon asked her to explain, wasn’t particularly impressed with her answer.

“If he does not service a master,” she said, “it will change the way he is treated by other slaves and other owners. It is not acceptable and it reflects poorly on him, Rodney insists. He says it would reflect poorly on me, as well, but I do not care.”

Ronon asked Daniel about it, finally, while Sheppard was still laid up. When Sheppard was around, he tended to answer questions for Daniel. And Daniel would let him.

“I don’t want you to service me if you don’t want to do it,” Ronon told him, flatly, when Daniel went fishing around in the blankets for Ronon’s cock.

Daniel paused, but he didn’t pull away.

“You’ve been talking to Teyla?” he guessed.

Ronon shrugged.

Carefully, Daniel sat back on his haunches.

“It’s hard for her to understand how our society works because it’s different from hers,” he said. “Not better or worse, but our definitions of relationships and –”

Sometimes, when he got like this, it was helpful to hold him down on Ronon’s cock until he lost interest in talking.

Ronon looked at him, pointedly.

“Okay,” Daniel stopped. “I understand that you’re concerned that you’re doing something bad to me. You’re not. You said your culture had slavery, right?”

“Not like this.”

“But similar.”

“Yeah. First-year-cadets, to train them…”

“And they were required to do what their owners asked of them?”

“Yeah,” Ronon admitted. Just not as frequently in the same way as on Atlantis.

“If I didn’t want you to touch me,” Daniel said. “I could sue you. I could sue you and Sheppard in court.”

“Okay.” Sheppard’s people liked to sue. Rodney made fun of them for it.

“And a judge would decide if you were mistreating me and rule on if you were allowed to continue. I don’t want to sue, Ronon, but if I did, I would lose.”

“I didn’t know slaves could do that,” Ronon admitted.

“It’s only for abuse,” Daniel said. “Slaves who falsely report get sold. No one wants a slave that doesn’t want them.” He leaned over, yanked the covers down and exposed Ronon. “And I want you, okay?”

He went to work, with a new urgency. It made it very challenging for Ronon to think about anything but his hot, slick tongue. Daniel pressed forward, took Ronon all the way down his throat, and Ronon thrust helplessly, shooting immediately.

Later, Daniel made a strange request.

“Can you come fuck me at work tomorrow?” Ronon blinked, bleary and still a bit high from orgasm. “There’s a guy in the lab that needs to see for himself that I take it up the ass from you,” Daniel said, straight-forwardly. “I’d ask Sheppard but he’d just want to find and punish the guy.”

So, the next day, Ronon fucked Daniel in the archaeology lab, bent over a table covered in various artifacts. Most of the civilians continued their work, slave or not. Others overtly watched and a few masturbated.

It was more strange than hot, and Ronon was angry at whatever had happened that Daniel needed to ask for this. Their coupling was violent: he left bruises on Daniel’s hips and thrust into him so hard Daniel was still walking funny when he showed up at dinner.

Daniel didn’t mention the incident to Sheppard, and Ronon took his cue from that.

~

Sheppard still liked to have Ronon watch, even now that they shared Daniel regularly. Being watched was important for cultural reasons Ronon still didn’t completely grasp, and Sheppard was picky about who observed him. He’d let Teyla and Rodney be there, as well as Richard Woolsey. But he wouldn’t let any soldiers in, ever, or civilians he didn’t like, which was pretty much all of them.

He was, however, going to let Daniel’s former owner, Jack O’Neill, watch after they found out the General would be visiting Atlantis. Sheppard told Ronon the guy would definitely want to watch them with Daniel, probably together, and they didn’t really have the option of refusing. Ronon didn’t care, but Sheppard looked pouty and irritated.

“Probably also going to have to let him have Daniel,” Sheppard, and looked even more annoyed.

  
“Okay,” Ronon said, while Sheppard tried to pretend he wasn’t sulking.

Ronon mentioned to Daniel the O’Neill guy was coming, curious to see his reaction. Daniel just nodded.

“I know,” he said. Then he paused, “Is Sheppard upset?”

“A little,” Ronon allowed. “Does he think you’re going back with him?”

“Maybe,” Daniel said. “Mostly, Sheppard doesn’t share particularly well. With people who aren’t you, anyway.” Ronon smirked, and Daniel went on: “Jack just wants to see that I’m okay. He used to watch me and Mitchell on webcam and he can’t do that here.”

“Who’s Mitchell?”

“He took over SG-1 after Jack moved to Washington,” Daniel said. “I thought you’d met?”

Ronon shook his head. “He owned you?”

“Not legally. Jack lent me to him.”

“You ever had been with a woman?” Ronon asked, curious.

  
Daniel smiled, looked amused. “I was married, Ronon. And Jack lent me to women, too.”

“You miss it?”

“Women?” Daniel looked thoughtful. “I’m very satisfied with you and Sheppard,” he said, carefully. He always phrased his answers to be as respectful as possible. Ronon found it annoying and dishonest.

“Truth,” Ronon said.

Daniel shrugged. “I like women,” he said, mildly. “Do you?”

Ronon smirked. “Yeah.”

“I’m sure someone would lend you a woman,” Daniel told him. “Like Lorne, he’d be happy to get Keller off his hands for a night.”

Ronon just shrugged. He didn’t really want to entangle himselfinto something he didn’t fully understand. Daniel was enough.

 

~

 

They had a mission go bad shortly after that. Sheppard had to have emergency gut surgery; Teyla got staples in her head; Rodney got stabbed several times protecting knocked-out Teyla, and Ronon had to carry them all home.

Ronon was so sore he didn’t want Daniel to even touch him. He escaped the infirmary – where the rest of the team were too drugged or wounded to leave – and went to his own bed. Daniel showed up shortly, after checking on Sheppard.

Daniel’s weight shifting on the bed actually made Ronon want to vomit. He was too tired and half-conscious to tell Daniel, but the man figured it out from the moaning.

“Okay,” Daniel said, quietly rising. “I’ll go someplace else. Check on you in the morning?”

  
Ronon grunted and passed right out.

Where Daniel went turned out to be Sheppard’s quarters. And he invited Keller to sleep with him. She did, and they were having sex in Sheppard’s bed in the morning, when Sheppard left the infirmary and staggered home.

Ronon got paged to come to Sheppard’s quarters. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want any servicing and he was pretty sure Sheppard wasn’t in any shape to have it, either. He grunted a couple times, but Sheppard wouldn’t shut up. It took Ronon ages to get there, because he had to go slow and almost slid down the wall a couple times.

“What the hell?” he asked Sheppard, when he finally got there.

Sheppard didn’t look good, either, pale and sitting against the wall. He should have been in bed, except Daniel was stripping the sheets and clearly getting ready for laundry. Daniel glanced up briefly when Ronon entered, face unusually tense.

“Did you give Daniel permission to sleep with Keller?” Sheppard demanded, without preamble. Ronon blinked, looked around the room for the doctor. “She left,” Sheppard said.

 

“No,” Ronon said, leaning against the wall. He saw Daniel grimace almost imperceptibly at that.

“Did you ask permission from Lorne?” Sheppard asked. Ronon wasn’t sure who that was directed at.

“No,” he said, while Daniel shook his head.

Sheppard explained what he’d walked in on, then.

“Is that bad?” Ronon asked, since he was too tired and hurt to even attempt tact.

“Yes,” Sheppard growled. “It’s bad. He doesn’t sleep with anyone without our permission, especially not a slave who doesn’t have permission from her master either. And Daniel knows it.”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel broke in, turning around with the sheets stuffed in a laundry bag. “I do know it.” He looked at Ronon. “You asked if I missed women. Well, I do, and Keller…” he shrugged.

Ronon didn’t see the big deal. Well, he kind of did, except that Lorne lent Keller to people all the damn time. If Sheppard or Ronon had asked, he’d have given them to her for Daniel.

“Keller lied to Lorne about where she was so she could come here,” Sheppard interrupted. “That’s not acceptable.”

“Please don’t get her in trouble,” Daniel said. He was trying to come off as calm, but it came out pleadingly. “This was my idea. She just went along with it. Please don’t tell Lorne.”

Sheppard shook her head. “It was her idea, because she wanted to piss of Lorne.”

“Please,” Daniel began again, eyes darting to Ronon. “Don’t get her in trouble.”

“Go do the fucking laundry,” Sheppard snapped.

Daniel closed his lips, took the bag, and left.

Ronon waited until he was gone.

“It’s not that bad,” he said, causing Sheppard to roll his eyes. But the man also lost interest in yelling as soon as Daniel was out the room.

“Keller didn’t try to make me go back to the infirmary,” he said. “That’s an upside.”

Ronon thought from the way Sheppard looked, he probably should go back.

“Gonna tell Lorne?” he asked.  
  
“If it happens again,” Sheppard answered. “I don’t think it will.”

“Gonna punish Daniel?”

“We probably should,” Sheppard said, not sounding thrilled. “When I can lift my arm without crying, I’ll spank the hell out of his ass.”

 ~

It didn’t happen again, maybe because shortly after that incident, Sheppard asked Lorne to borrow Keller for a weekend.

Keller showed up looking tense and hesitant, like she wasn’t sure what would happen.

Sheppard had her watch while he laid a nude Daniel across his lap, and spanked him until Daniel’s ass glowed red and the slave whimpered for him to stop.

Sheppard released Daniel, shoved him away. “Okay?” he asked Keller, who looked like she wanted to cry herself. “Okay.”

The bed was crowded with four people. It was nice to have a woman, though, that Ronon would admit. Keller wasn’t nearly as submissive as Daniel in bed. Ronon thought it was fun, but he was smart enough to figure out it wasn’t a great trait in a slave.

“Can you take both of us?” Sheppard asked, already thrusting inside her from below.

Keller nodded, wordlessly, and spread her legs wider. Ronon climbed on top, tested with his fingers, then slid in right next to Sheppard. Daniel knelt up by her head, but Ronon couldn’t see what they were doing. It was too hard to think with the silky hardness of Sheppard’s dick rubbing his own, and Ronon didn’t last long at all.

Later, she rode Daniel as he lay between Sheppard and Ronon – both sated – and the next morning Ronon woke to her mouth on his dick, while Daniel fucked her from behind and Sheppard slammed into Daniel.

  
Afterwards, Keller vanished into the bathroom to clean up. Daniel went with her, but emerged quickly with wash cloths to clean up the men.

“Thank you,” Ronon heard Daniel whisper to Sheppard as he wiped the semen of the man’s abdomen.

  
Sheppard just grunted, put one forearm over his eyes. “Time for sleep,” he said. “Two slaves are fucking exhausting.”

Ronon checked out Daniel’s ass as the man bent over – it wasn’t even pink. Sheppard’s spanking hadn’t left a mark.

Daniel cleaned Ronon up, and then lay down next to him. “Thank you, too,” he said.

“You and she…” Ronon murmured.

Daniel shook his head. “She just wanted to do it with people she likes, Ronon.” He said it so softly Sheppard probably didn’t hear.

Keller didn’t enjoy the afterglow with them. There wasn’t room on the bed, and Ronon thought he could actually see her square her shoulder as she left to return to Lorne.

~

Daniel accompanied Sheppard’s team on a mission, shortly before his former owner was scheduled to arrive. Teyla usually did the negotiation bits, but she said she was sick with food poisoning and cancelled.

“I am never eating Earthling food again,” she said, lying in the infirmary with a wet cloth over her face.

“More for me,” Sheppard sang.

“Daniel can replace me on this mission,” she said. “I’ve talked to him about our progress there. He knows the negotiation process.” Sheppard looked skeptical, while Daniel looked hopeful. “But do not mention he is your slave,” she added. “Or they’ll take him and kill you.”

“Noted,” Sheppard said.

He didn’t look thrilled about bringing Daniel, though Daniel was clearly happy about it.

“I haven’t been off-world in a long time,” Daniel explained, as they geared up.

“Don’t get killed the week before O’Neill gets here,” Sheppard requested. “He’ll be pissed.”

Before the team left, Sheppard had to cut Daniel’s collar off. Rodney’s, too.

They had to get a specialty tool, since if it was removed incorrectly it could seriously injure the slave.

“Anti-theft feature,” Sheppard said, slicing through the collar carefully. “The things tend to have a universal meaning,” he muttered...

“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel replied. “They’d probably think it’s a necklace.”

“Or they take you and kill me,” Sheppard answered. “Let’s take it off.”

Negotiations went fine. Ronon mostly watched Daniel talk to their hosts, sitting in the background with the rest of the team while Sheppard and Rodney had quiet, stupid arguments about Earth things. Daniel seemed to being doing fine and everything proceeded peacefully.

And of course, that never lasted.

It turned out Teyla probably didn’t have food poisoning, because that night Daniel got sick exactly like her.

He was throwing up all over their tent, miserable as hell, and it wasn’t stopping. Ronon took care of him, because Sheppard didn’t like vomit. Daniel kept apologizing and trying to clean up after himself, but he was too sick to do it.

“We should take him back,” Ronon told Sheppard, in one of the rare moments where Daniel was resting fitfully.

“Can’t,” Daniel spoke up, overhearing. “They’ll be offended and it’ll undo all the talks so far.”

“Well, that sucks,” Sheppard said. “Are they gonna be offended if you puke all over them?”

“Just bring Keller,” Daniel muttered. “She can give me something…and I can finish the talks. And then go back to Atlantis…and die.”

~

Keller arrived by herself, eyes big and face anxious. Ronon remembered she rarely went off-world. Sheppard and Rodney exiled themselves from the tent and took their sleeping bags with them, but Ronon stuck around to help her maneuver Daniel’s larger form. She stuck Daniel with an IV and performed a full examination.

“He gonna be okay?” Ronon asked.

“Just need to stop throwing up,” Daniel muttered.

“He needs fluids and I put an anti-nausea drug in there,” Keller told him. “He can get through tomorrow, but after that it’s straight to the infirmary.”

She looked at Ronon with concern. “Are you feeling okay?” Worry filled her face.

“Fine.”

“If Teyla got it, you probably were exposed, too.”

“Fine.”

“Well, I can give you a booster, anyway.” Without asking, she jabbed him in the arm with a syringe. “Be easier when you do get it.”

The contents of the needle burned into Ronon’s veins and he pulled away.

“You should get some rest,” Keller said.

He was tired, suddenly a lot more so. Ronon dropped into his sleeping bag and barely got one leg inside before he was out.

~

Ronon woke in the morning to Sheppard shaking him.

  
“Wakey-wakey.”

“Hrm.” Ronon sat up, cast a glance around the tent. Rodney stood by the entrance, wrinkling his nose at some imperceptible odor. Daniel was getting dressed for the day, still looking a little green.

“Let’s finish these negotiations and go home,” Sheppard said. “I think Rodney gave me his hypochondria.”

Ronon was already dressed, having never taken his clothes off the night before.

“Ready,” he said. The team started to move towards the exit, when Sheppard stopped.

“Hey, where’s Keller?” Sheppard asked.

“Not in here,” Rodney reported, sarcastically.

“I think she must have gone back to Atlantis,” Daniel offered. “Being off-world freaks her out.”

“Great. Let’s hope you don’t relapse,” Sheppard muttered. “Let’s go.”

Negotiations concluded slowly. It was boring. Daniel seemed to have recovered almost completely, but now Rodney was convinced he was ill, and Ronon had to listen to him and Sheppard argue about it.

Finally, they got to go home. Daniel had started to look more exhausted, and Ronon thought he might start throwing up again.

~

Daniel got taken straight to the infirmary when they returned, even though he insisted he felt okay now.

“I’m just tired,” he complained, but Sheppard steered him by the arm to the infirmary, anyway.

Marie approached them. “Everything okay?”

“Keller saw him last night,” Sheppard reported. “She needs to see him again. He has whatever Teyla has.”

“Keller went off-world yesterday,” the nurse said. “She’s not back yet.”

“Yeah, she is,” Sheppard said. “She went to see Jackson.”

Marie shook her head. “She’s not back yet.”

“She’s probably in her quarters,” Daniel said, “which is where I’d like to be…”

But Marie took over from Sheppard and put Daniel on a gurney.

Ronon went to the debriefing with Rodney and Sheppard. He felt fine, no sign of impending illness. A little fuzzy from lack of sleep, but otherwise good.

“Dr. Jackson is recovering?” Woolsey asked, at the debriefing.

“Keller took good care of him,” Sheppard said. “He’s in the infirmary.”

Woolsey nodded, and then wanted to talk about the negotiations and how many beans they’d be getting.

  
~

Daniel didn’t even spend the night in the infirmary. He showed up at Ronon’s door that evening.

“Keller let you go?” Ronon asked, suspiciously.

“Yep,” Daniel said. “But Sheppard thinks I’m still contagious and kicked me out.”

Ronon shrugged, figuring if he was getting sick, it would have already happened.

“Teyla’s better, too,” Daniel said. “Must be a 24-hour thing.”

Ronon and Daniel had already been asleep for an hour when the door chimed. Ronon woke, waiting for Daniel to get it like he usually did. But Daniel stayed still and didn’t even open his eyes.

So, Ronon rose and opened the door. He found Lorne standing there, looking angry.

“Jennifer here?” Lorne demanded. “You have to ask before you take her.”

“She’s not here,” Ronon said, brain muddled by sleep.

Lorne didn’t believe him, because he pushed past Ronon and turned on the lights.

Daniel barely stirred when the lights came on, as Lorne swept the room and, of course, discovered Keller really wasn’t there.

Abruptly, Lorne looked even angrier. He reached out, grabbed Daniel’s shoulder, and shook him. Ronon moved swiftly between them, since although he might not fully understand everything, he knew there were rules about touching another man’s slave.

“Jackson,” Lorne snapped, as Daniel sat up, sleepily. “Where the hell is Jennifer?”

Daniel blinked at him. “Um, I was asleep,” he offered. He looked at Ronon. “What’s going on?”

It was Lorne who answered. “Jennifer’s missing.” He paused, then sounded horrified. “My slave ran away.”

Daniel said nothing, which Lorne didn’t even notice. But Ronon did; Daniel was never this quiet. He looked at Daniel, and Daniel immediately looked away.

 

~

 

There was a massive search of Atlantis. Military only, no civilians or slaves. In the middle of the night, the moment Lorne reported his suspicions to Woolsey.

But of course, they didn’t find her.

Because Jennifer Keller had never returned to Atlantis. She hadn’t arrived home before Sheppard’s team, but departed before them, for some other planet.

And there was no way to track her, since Lorne had cut her collar off himself before she’d gone to treat Daniel. Lorne was furious. Sheppard shared his opinion. Woolsey was deeply unhappy about having to file a report on an escaped mission slave.

Ronon and Daniel were the last people to see her.

When interrogated, Daniel claimed he remembered very little besides being ill, said he barely noticed Keller even showed up. This was a lie, since he’d asked for her and Ronon remember their conversation. Daniel had been sick, but lucid and conscious.

“I think she gave me a sedative,” Ronon said, honestly. He hadn’t figured it out ‘til long after. “She said it was something so I wouldn’t get sick, but it knocked me out."

“Bitch,” Lorne hissed, while Daniel found something interesting to look at on the floor.

“She probably gave me one, too, then,” Daniel said, after a moment. He was still lying, and it was starting to bother Ronon.

“That’s assault times two,” Woolsey said. “Help me fill out the report and the charges, Major Lorne?”

Daniel and Ronon left when the two men started the paperwork. Ronon tried to catch Daniel’s eye, but the man deliberately ignored him. And he was still being uncharacteristically quiet.

It had fooled Woolsey, but Daniel was an idiot if he thought it would fool Sheppard. And Sheppard was going to be really, really angry.

“Let’s go see Teyla,” Ronon said, redirecting the transporter. Daniel stayed quiet.

At Teyla’s quarters, Daniel spoke first.

“Ronon knows,” he said, flatly.

Teyla frowned, then sighed audibly. “Come in,” she said.

They entered and Daniel looked at Rodney, reclining on Teyla’s bed. “You should get out,” he said. “Plausible deniability.”

“Right,” Rodney said, immediately rising, He pushed past Ronon. “I had nothing to do with anything criminal, okay?”

Daniel sat next to Teyla on her bed, Ronon looming over them.

“You planned this,” he said.

“I do not think you can prove it,” Teyla retorted.

“You pretended to be sick,” Ronon said.

“I drugged myself with an emetic,” Teyla corrected.

Daniel coughed. “Teyla, maybe don’t admit…”

“I was genuinely sick,” she said. “No one who saw me would say it was fake.”

“So Daniel would replace you. And then Daniel took the same thing,” Ronon said.

“I was sick, too,” Daniel offered. “You saw it.”

“Keller gets her collar cut off and she’s gone,” Ronon finished.

“She is free,” Teyla said.

“Why are you still here?” Ronon asked Daniel. He reached out, touched Daniel’s bare throat. They’d actually forgotten to put his collar back, though once Sheppard found out about the events, that’d change. “You could be gone, too.”

“Keller hated being a slave,” Daniel said. “I don’t. I told you that before.”

Silence for a second, then Teyla spoke: “Are you going to tell Sheppard?"

“He probably already knows,” Ronon answered. “If he doesn’t, he’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. He looked worried for the first time. “He will.”

~

Daniel reluctantly accompanied Ronon to Sheppard’s quarters. They walked slowly, only delaying the inevitable.

Ronon’s own anger was fading. Daniel had lied to and manipulated him, but Ronon felt nothing about Keller’s escape. He probably would have helped, and the fact that Daniel had excluded him made him angry again.

“If Sheppard reports me to the SGC, I’m going to prison,” Daniel said, when they reached the door. He spoke mildly, but he looked afraid.

“I own you, too,” Ronon reminded him.

“You look like you want to kill me,” Daniel informed him.

Ronon chimed Sheppard’s door, shoved Daniel through when the man didn’t enter on his own.

“You know about this?” Sheppard demanded, the moment they were inside.

“Not ‘til right about now,” Ronon answered. He pushed Daniel towards Sheppard again.

Sheppard grabbed Daniel and for a second Ronon thought he was going to attack Daniel. Instead, a new collar appeared in his hand and Sheppard fastened it tightly around Daniel’s throat. “Get down.” Sheppard shoved and Daniel went down on his knees.

“Who else knows?” Sheppard asked.

“Teyla and Rodney,” Ronon answered. “I think that’s it.”

“Of course they do.” Sheppard clenched his fists and Ronon watched, waiting for him to strike Daniel. “What are you still doing here, Jackson? Why didn’t you go with her?”

  
Daniel shook his head, eyes on the ground. “I didn’t want to go. She hates everything about this place and she hated her owner. I don’t.”

Sheppard twisted his fist in Daniel’s hair and he flinched. “You might, after this.”

Ronon cleared his throat warningly, and Sheppard looked up.

“Ronon, he helped a slave escape. He stole property from the U.S. government. He is in deep, deep trouble.”

“You really care about Keller?” Ronon asked.

Sheppard hesitated. “What?”

“Really?” Ronon prompted.

“It’s wrong,” Sheppard said, but his grip on Daniel’s hair was loosening. “And he knows it.” Ronon waited. “He _tricked_ us,” Sheppard continued. “That’s what I’m mad about.”

“Me too,” Ronon agreed.

“Okay,” Sheppard answered. “Why are you acting like I shouldn’t punish him?”

“We should.” Ronon walked closer. “Put him on the performance stage.”

Instantly, Daniel’s head shot up and he glared at Ronon, face betrayed. And of course, Sheppard saw the reaction.

“He hates it,” Ronon said. “That’s what it’s for, right?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed. “That’s exactly what it’s for.” He let go of Daniel’s hair, but leaned down. “You’re going on that stage every week until we’re even.” He straightened up, took a deep breath. “I feel better already.”

Ronon nodded, glad to see most of the tension gone from Sheppard and Daniel. Well, Daniel looked irritated, but that was better than fearful.

“I’m gonna wash up.” Sheppard poked Daniel in the side with his foot. “Take your clothes off and get on the bed.”

Daniel obeyed, while Sheppard vanished into the bathroom.

“I wish,” Daniel said, bitterly, “I hadn’t explained our cultural institutions to you so well.”

Ronon just stripped off his own clothes, and presented his dick to Daniel’s lips.

~

Daniel only went on stage once. It was the week General O’Neill arrived, and Daniel’s former owner apparently objected to the performance, which had Daniel servicing three Marines at the same time.

“O’Neill took him back,” Sheppard reported to Ronon, with a resentful shrug. “Not ours anymore.”

“You explain what he did?” Ronon asked.

“Yeah, and he thought it was funny.” Sheppard scowled. “I mean, he understood it was wrong, and he said it was probably a bad idea to leave Daniel here if that’s what he’s going to do in his spare time.”

“Oh.”

“Mostly, I think he missed Daniel, though.” Sheppard shrugged again. “Said we can have him one more time tonight, if O’Neill gets to watch.”

 

~the end~


End file.
